【You are now located: Blank Zone – A3 District】
After the vibrations completely subsided, Mu Shan saw a green timer above her head.
【Blank Zone stay time: 23 hours 59 minutes】
She bent down to pick up the cup that had fallen to the ground and gently placed it on the tabletop.
Mu Shan did not rush to check the rewards from the previous instance. Instead, she went to the sunroom to pay attention to the movements outside.
The glass roof still had quite a bit of aquatic plants, sand, soil, and garbage clinging to it, but even so, bright light still shone down, filling the entire sunroom.
Mu Shan squinted and looked up. It was a pure white expanse, with no blue sky or sun.
There was some commotion outside the door, like many people moving about, but the voices exchanging words sounded normal, not like any fighting was happening.
Looking out through the peephole, the outside world was a pure white expanse. The ground was not soil but some kind of stone. Apart from one sunroom after another in all sorts of styles, the world had nothing else, which fit the name “Blank Zone” perfectly.
The two nearest sunrooms to her were different from the basic “public toilet style.” The one directly across from her seemed to have been expanded, with a ring of concrete walls outside the door. The top of the walls was embedded with shards of sharp glass, and there was an iron grating gate in the center.
Through the gaps in the iron grating, Mu Shan saw a middle-aged man wearing rubber gloves and an apron, using a wrench to repair a fan.
The safe house diagonally ahead was not large, but its exterior was not concrete-colored; it was log-colored. It was unclear if it was actually made of wood, but Mu Shan guessed it was more likely mimicked. Around the wooden sunroom was a circle of wooden spikes and cones, and she did not see the owner.
The safe houses were really packed too closely together, like some slum. Mu Shan pondered for a moment, then returned underground first.
【Safe House Gift Pack
Please choose one of the following three upgrades:
1. Underground safe house expansion (+1m)
2. Add ground defenses (basic type)
3. Sunroom expansion (+1m)】
This time, Mu Shan did not hesitate and directly chose to add ground defenses. After a rumbling roar, the system prompted that construction was underway, with a 5-minute countdown.
Mu Shan was already used to the noise from this kind of “renovation.” She took out the other system rewards.
There were five Water/Gas/Electricity Supplement Cards in total. One card could unconditionally offset 1 unit of electricity, 1 ton of water, or 1 cubic meter of gas.
Mu Shan currently had plenty of gold coins and no need to use them, so she stored all five cards in the cabinet for a rainy day.
There were three personal Attribute Point Cards, which could only be used on the player themselves and could not be traded or discarded. The effects were random.
After Mu Shan confirmed to use them, her personal attribute panel prompted respectively: Agility +5, Strength +3, Defense +1.
To be honest, they were good items, but these three rewards were too ordinary. There was not even a single tool, which was not as much as the side quest completion reward.
She could not help but wonder if, for a main quest that lasted 20 days, such rewards were a bit too “stingy.”
The Main God System was really miserly.
After grumbling a couple of times in her mind, the rumbling overhead was still ongoing. Mu Shan took out the final reward: the Gas Mask.
It was a classic one-piece gas mask. The extremely pure glass visor protected the skin below the eyes, nearly enveloping the entire face. The breathing apparatus had filter elements on both sides containing activated carbon and such, which could adsorb toxins and dust.
Mu Shan turned the gas mask over in her hands. The timing of this item’s appearance was even more suspicious.
The system had never rewarded ordinary items separately before. Whether knives, guns, sticks, or household appliances, players had to buy them from the mall themselves or scavenge them outside.
For this gas mask to appear in the reward list, its importance was self-evident.
While waiting for the sunroom construction to finish, Mu Shan equipped an extra Fruit Knife under her spacious tactical jacket, securing it against her belt.
She tucked the Peashooter into her jacket pocket, and her old partner, the Viking Battle Axe, she held in her hand.
Though the axe surface was full of scratches after many days of battle, the baptism of blood and flesh made it even more intimidating.
As soon as the 5 minutes were up, the noise from the sunroom stopped.
Mu Shan pushed open the door and saw that about a meter out from the wall, a ring of square stone walls had appeared. At the entrance of the walls was an iron grating gate.
The walls were about 1.5 meters high, just like ancient fortresses, completely enclosing the sunroom inside (the escape passage was still outside the walls).
The walls had a rustic style, with broken tiles inserted into the slanted surfaces, sharp at the top to prevent outsiders from climbing.
That was it; nothing else.
…It said basic type, and it really was basic.
No matter how Mu Shan looked at it, it felt a bit lacking, but since the new instance had not started yet, she did not know the future upgrade directions for now.
She closed both doors securely, put on her mask, and walked out of the safe house.
The people around subconsciously looked over at her. Everyone seemed wary of such a delicate girl carrying a battle axe, but they all kept their distance and did not approach.
The players’ safe houses dotted the originally pure white world with colors, and the houses were arranged very regularly, with a roadway squeezed out in the middle for people to pass through.
As Mu Shan walked on the “road,” looking at the houses and pedestrians on both sides, she suddenly had the illusion of being in the real world.
This feeling reached its peak when she discovered the “market.”
A circular central plaza appeared at the intersection of several roads, about 1,300 square meters. This open space had become the central point for players to exchange intelligence and trade supplies.
At a glance, it was crowded with people, vendors everywhere, and the din of voices incessant.
Mu Shan looked around and quietly hid her axe, squeezing toward the crowded areas.
Since players were only staying for 1 day, no one chose to form teams or hire bodyguards. Instead, there were many people setting up stalls to sell supplies.
With one glance, Mu Shan saw at least five or six stalls selling clothes, and seven or eight selling weapons.
There were few selling food; she only saw one. The stall did not have normal food but something produced from a certain instance.
In a large iron bucket, soft and mushy purple thick pulp was filled to the brim. There was no fire, yet it still bubbled and boiled, with bubbles in the shape of skulls, emitting a fruity wood fragrance.
It was just that the appearance was really…
Mu Shan looked troubled, and most of the surrounding onlooker players did too.
Seeing no one buying, the stall owner shouted at the top of his lungs: “Learned it from a master in the last magic instance! Devil Fruit Sweet Soup! Eating it increases strength value! 2 gold coins a bowl, no cheating young or old! Come buy quick!”
As soon as he said that, a bold warrior really stepped forward.
Mu Shan saw the muscular hunk toss two gold coins, pick up a bowl of boiling bubbling purple “sweet soup” with his big hand, pinch his nose, and gulp it down. Then the whole person froze.
Everyone awaited his reaction.
The stall owner asked cautiously: “How is it? Strength value increased, right?”
The hunk nodded, then bent over and lowered his head.
“Vomit—”
The strength value did increase, but the player’s status became [Poisoned].
The crowd scattered in a panic, and Mu Shan quickly slipped away too.
The most popular stall in the Blank Zone gathering point was run by an old doctor who looked over sixty. Next to him was a sign: Acupuncture, Pulse Diagnosis, Scraping.
The old doctor had white hair, a face full of wrinkles, and wore a yellowed white coat. He muttered slowly in his mouth: “Told you not to move around, can’t even find the acupoints right…”
But his hands moved very deftly, “snap snap snap,” inserting needles without a second’s hesitation.
In front of him, a fat man lay on a “bed” simply pieced together from two stools and a plank, his back exposed, densely covered with thin silver needles trembling like fine threads.
Beside the man, a sallow-faced woman waited for pulse diagnosis. The old doctor was swamped.
Though various medicines could be gathered in instances, doctors were scarce. Players rolled and crawled, always accumulating injuries and illnesses. If unlucky enough to get an infectious disease, medicines were useless.
Mu Shan intended to buy some attack-type items, but she had no equally valuable items to trade. The Zombie Siege cards had to be saved for crises in the new instance; she dared not be careless.
After browsing a circle, she returned to her safe house.
In the last few days of the Zombie Siege instance, the sunroom had been submerged in deep water for days, with no sunlight and extreme humidity. Her washed clothes would not dry.
This Blank Zone seemed to have no day or night, perfect for using the intense light to dry the wet clothes.
Mu Shan closed the door, rolled up her sleeves, and entered the bathroom. Four large basins soaked her changed outer jacket, outer pants, underwear, and undergarments respectively.
The soapy dirty water swirled down the drain, leaving the fragrance of laundry detergent.
Mu Shan washed all the clothes in one go, including the tactical jacket worn when fighting zombies.
She picked up the last cotton garment with both hands, shook it vigorously in the air a few times, then tiptoed to hang it on the iron rack in the sunroom.
The open space around the orange tree was fully hung with clothes.
As Mu Shan packed up the empty basins, a familiar system prompt suddenly refreshed before her eyes.
【Single wash of >10 clothing items unlocks skill for player: Trade Old for New
(Active) Randomly refreshes the durability of one owned item per day
“Basically, it’s endless.”】
Mu Shan was stunned, then overjoyed.
Another skill! Though it seemed not very useful.
But thinking about it carefully, her childhood dream had been to have a cake that never ran out! A piggy bank with endless money!
She wiped her hands and dashed back to the basement, choosing to use the skill.
Two seconds later, a cardboard box in the corner flashed with faint white light.
【Today’s Trade Old for New: Milk x1 carton
Original shelf life -20 days, now shelf life +20 days】
The expired milk she had not finished but could not bear to throw away had turned into fresh milk under the skill’s effect.
“Who says trash is useless.” Mu Shan was smug.
She was delighted when suddenly a deafening gunshot rang out from afar, “Bang!”, instantly shattering the peaceful atmosphere.
The Blank Zone erupted in chaos, chickens flying and dogs jumping.
Mu Shan’s expression tightened. She strode out of the sunroom and hid behind the stone walls to look outside.
The previously bustling market area now had people scattering like birds and beasts, running as if evil ghosts chased them.
At the source of the gunshot, a large pool of red blood stained the pale ground.
Mu Shan could not see the deceased, but she saw a panicked thin man clutching some package, fleeing quickly.
Robbery and murder? Killing for treasure?
Many nearby safe house owners poked their heads out to check, but the nearest log-colored sunroom was deathly silent, as if no one was there.
The middle-aged man opposite walked out boldly, leaning against the concrete wall to watch the show.
“Stupid newbie.” He muttered lowly, unclear whom he cursed.
Perhaps noticing Mu Shan’s gaze, the middle-aged man weighed the wrench in his hand and returned to his safe house with a sullen face.
He slammed the iron gate with a “clang,” showing no desire to communicate.
Mu Shan frowned and withdrew her gaze, but suddenly heard a shrill scream piercing the sky.
“Ah——!!!”
This cry was earth-shattering in the quiet Blank Zone, startling Mu Shan.
Strangely, though many had been watching the excitement earlier, now not a single head poked out.
She had no time to return to the house and could only crouch behind the wall, carefully peeking out with both eyes to observe.
On the empty plaza, the thin man who had fled hugging the package reappeared.
But now his feet dangled in the air, head thrown back. His entire body seemed suspended mid-air, pierced through the chest by something invisible. His still-twitching limbs struggled downward, blood spraying from his chest like a waterfall.
Mu Shan covered her mouth.
The thing carrying the man forward maintained a steady speed without pause. The man’s blood dripped down, gradually outlining the contours of that transparent thing.
Mu Shan seemed to see a human-like figure, but with extremely long limbs, estimated height of 2 meters.
The transparent person’s footsteps paused, and she suddenly crouched down, hiding herself.
From afar came the electronically synthesized voice of the system, dissipating in the air and reaching everyone’s ears.
【Blank Zone prohibits players from killing each other or fighting among themselves.
Violators will lose player qualification and permanently physically disappear】
【Please all players continue to strive for survival】
Mu Shan crouched behind the wall and did not dare to stand up. Her hands gripped the rough stone wall surface. Her legs had gone completely numb from squatting until she heard the “tap-tap” sounds gradually fade away. Only then did she slowly rub her way up and peek out.
The blank zone returned to its calm and lively state. Players began to venture out, and the blood that had spilled all over the ground earlier had completely vanished, as if the dead person had disappeared into thin air.
Mu Shan let out a breath of relief and dragged her numb legs back to the safe house.
This was the first time she had seen a monster from the Main God System’s faction. Judging from its strength, the transparent person held an overwhelming advantage against ordinary players. Otherwise, the player who had died earlier could not have been completely unable to resist, and the other players would not have shown such a taboo attitude.
The reason it was transparent was that the Main God System did not want players to see it.
Was it the identity that could not see the light of day, or the appearance?
Mu Shan did not think there was anything unacceptable about its appearance. The system could create zombies and monsters that were so ugly—flayed skin, tails, faceless… only uglier, no ugliest.
As for what was unacceptable about the identity?
There were only a few possibilities: one, the transparent person was a living player; two, the transparent person was a dead player; three, the transparent person was a player that was neither dead nor alive.
Mu Shan sighed.